Submit a story

Writing Guidelines

Every Day Fiction is looking for very short (flash) fiction, of up to 1000 words. There’s no such thing as too short — if you can do the job in 50 words, have at it! — but our readers prefer pieces that tell or at least hint at a complete story (some sort of action or tension rising to a moment of climax, and at least a clue toward a resolution, though it doesn’t have to be all spelled out).

All fiction genres are acceptable, and stories that don’t fit neatly into any genre are welcome too. While personal experiences and other non-fiction can be great sources of inspiration, please turn them into fiction for us, or send them elsewhere.

Our readership is adult, so children’s stories are unlikely to be accepted unless they are relevant to adults as well. On the other hand, we are not impressed by gratuitous sex and violence, or pointlessly foul language; edgy content should be necessary and appropriate to the plot and characters.

It ought to go without saying that any story submitted to Every Day Fiction must be your own unpublished original creation. If you publish a story on a blog, even your own personal blog, or any website accessible to the general public (i.e., if the story can be found and read online without a password or friend status or other limitation), it is considered published and therefore inappropriate for our market.

Since we do not have the time or resources to manage copyright permissions, please do not send us works with quoted song lyrics. You may use song titles and the names of composers, lyricists, and/or performers, and you may paraphrase or refer to the song lyrics, but we are unable to publish stories with directly quoted song lyrics unless they are in the public domain (written before 1920).

We will not publish stories which feature living public figures as characters, although referencing them (e.g., in terms of a concert/event/sighting) is acceptable. Historical/deceased public figures are acceptable as characters. We do not publish fan fiction and will not publish stories which feature non-original characters, although referencing them (e.g., in a film, as a toy, etc.) is fine, and historical/cultural/legendary characters which are clearly not the property of a single creator (e.g., Santa Claus, King Arthur) are also permissible.

Submission Process

All stories must be submitted through our online form — we cannot accept stories via email or snail mail. As part of the submission process, you are asked to agree to our contract for publication of your story, should it be accepted. The submission system will then send you an automated response email confirming that your submission has been received.

Our maximum response time is 90 days, after which the contract expires and becomes invalid if it hasn’t been activated by acceptance. If for any reason you believe that we have held your story without a response past 90 days, please contact us so we can look into it. We will, of course, do our best to keep our average response time as low as possible; we are currently averaging 75 to 80 days.

Multiple Submissions & Simultaneous Submissions

Multiple submissions are acceptable; you may have up to three stories in our submission process at any one time. However, please don’t try to upload more than one story at a time into the submission form — each story must be submitted separately.

Unfortunately, simultaneous submissions are not possible: when you submit using our online form, you must grant us the right to publish your story if we select it for Every Day Fiction, which you cannot do if you have offered that same right elsewhere.

Compensation

We believe in the importance of being paid for your writing, even if it’s only a token amount. At this time, we are able to offer three dollars (US$3) for each published story, to be paid via PayPal, with the option to donate it back to Every Day Fiction if you are so inclined.

More importantly, publication also includes an opportunity to promote your writing beyond Every Day Fiction. We will gladly provide a link to your blog or website, and if you have a book on Amazon, we can link to that as well.

Finally, the author whose story is the top-rated in a given month will be featured in Flash Fiction Chronicles’ monthly Author Interview — a chance for readers to get to know you, and a further opportunity for you to promote your blog or website and any books or other publications you may have out there.

Terms and Agreements

Due to our aggressive publication schedule, you must agree to our terms and agreements as part of the submission process. When you submit your story, a dialog box will pop up containing our contract. The terms are fairly standard, but we still recommend that you read it carefully and contact us if you feel anything is unclear or you have any questions. You are then given the option to accept or decline our terms, just as you would when you install software. If you accept, you will be e-mailed to confirm that we’ve received your submission. Declining the contract voids the submission and we will not receive your story.

We ask for First Rights and specifically First Internet Publication, with an option on First Anthology Rights for 18 months (which, if exercised, nets you another dollar). After publication, your story will remain in our searchable archives unless you ask us to remove it. Copyright always remains with the author.

** The submission system asks for your mailing address solely for legal purposes (the contract identifies you as NAME residing at ADDRESS); we will never send you anything without your permission, nor will we publish or distribute that information to any third party, with one tiny exception — if you do not supply a bio to be included with your story, we will form the bio as follows, using the state or province and country as supplied in your address: “Author Name writes in State/Province, Country.” We really do prefer that you craft a custom bio for yourself, though.

Every Day Fiction is a magazine that specializes in bringing you fine fiction in bite-sized doses. Every day, we publish a new short story of 1000 words or fewer that can be read during your lunch hour, on transit, or even over breakfast.

Feel free to browse around the site, check out our archives, or even sign up to receive a flash fiction story in your inbox... every day!